Pope issues apology for scandals at Vatican

Pope Francis did not identify any one scandal. A Vatican spokesman said the pope could have done so had he wanted to.

Photo: Gregorio Borgia /Associated Press

VATICAN CITY — Amid a three-week conference of hundreds of bishops on family issues, Pope Francis issued an unusual and unexpected public apology Wednesday for scandals that have bedeviled the church.

“I would like to ask for forgiveness in the name of the church for the scandals that have happened in this last period both in Rome and at the Vatican,” the pope told the assembled faithful as he opened his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.

“I ask for your forgiveness,” he said humbly.

The pope did not say which scandals he was referring to, but even just in recent days, there has been no shortage of headline-grabbing news to distract from the Synod of Bishops, which is in the middle of a divisive, three-week discussion of such issues as the church’s approach to gays and to divorced Catholics who remarry without obtaining an annulment.

Last week, a Vatican official announced he’s gay and issued a denunciation of homophobia in the church. He was dismissed.

At the same time, the Italian news media has been filled with reports that a priest in Rome had sexual relations with men and that his superiors knew.

Also last week, a priest in northern Italy said in a television interview that children were at fault in many pedophilia cases because they were seeking affection that they did not get at home. Priests, he said, could sometimes succumb. The remarks created an uproar, forcing the priest’s dismissal.

One support group for victims of clergy abuse said the pope’s apology was empty as long as he did not act more decisively in stopping clergy sex scandals.

“It’s more important that Francis stop abuse than that we forgive him for it,” the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, said in a statement. “But that takes courage, the courage that popes and bishops continue to lack.”

Some Vatican watchers interpreted the apology as a pointed reference to yet another scandal, more central to the synod itself. This week, an Italian blog published what it said was a private letter written to the pope before the gathering of some 300 prelates had even begun.

In it, 13 conservative cardinals expressed concern that the outcome of the synod would be a foregone conclusion and not the result of open debate.

After the letter was published Monday, several of the cardinals cited as signatories denied any involvement, while other cardinals said they had signed a letter with a markedly different content, adding to the intrigue.

The letter prompted a frenzy of behind-the-scenes speculation in the news media that the pope’s authority was being challenged or even subverted.

On Tuesday, the Vatican confirmed that the letter was authentic but called it a “disruption that was not intended by the signatories (at least by the most authoritative)” and said it would be “inappropriate to allow it to have any influence.”